I needed a platform to try out the Dagu Explorer robot control board. So I built one using a plastic plate from an old CD Rom drive, a couple of geared motors, wheels from a “Turbo Diesel” dump truck toy (a knock-off of the Tonka Dump Truck?), and an Arduino UNO.

I made a platform from the plastic base plate of an old CD Rom drive, cutting it to about the same length as the Explorer board, so that the corner infra-red sensors would over-hang the ends. This was a mistake! It turns out that the sensors are easily bent in collisions, and it would have been better to have them slightly behind the corner edges of the base plate.

The two, 45 year old, 6V geared motors were bolted to the plate and a single old furniture caster wheel was mounted using old Mechano L brackets on the front. The geared motors were bought to use in building a toy long before micro processors or micro controllers were ever invented, but never used. They have an adjustable gearbox that allows selecting gear ratios from 3:1 to 16:1. The caster wheel has a ball-bearing axle, so rotates freely and is capable of operating with a far greater load that this robot will ever impose on it.

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